Getting Fat On T3?

[Spartan300]

Been applying Peat principals, diet and supplements for around 4 years and very little has made much difference.

Last bloodwork showed high androgens but I still experience poor sleep, libido, exercise tolerance and worsening body composition.

I'd held off because it seemed like a relatively drastic step but I finally decided to try supplemental thryroid.
T3 has improved mood and temps to degree but all other symptoms remain.

The biggest surprise is that I'm gaining belly fat quicker than I ever have.
My expectation based off reduced stress hormones was the exact opposite!

What might be happening here?

 

[opethfeldt]

How's your estrogen? T3 can increase estrogen for some people.

 

[Fexxx]

Same situation here. Taking ~ 60mcg per day and haven’t lost a gram.
Also my Exercise performance suffers a lot. No more sport induced adrenaline/ cortisol highs .

 

[ddjd]

Been applying Peat principals, diet and supplements for around 4 years and very little has made much difference.

Last bloodwork showed high androgens but I still experience poor sleep, libido, exercise tolerance and worsening body composition.

I'd held off because it seemed like a relatively drastic step but I finally decided to try supplemental thryroid.
T3 has improved mood and temps to degree but all other symptoms remain.

The biggest surprise is that I'm gaining belly fat quicker than I ever have.
My expectation based off reduced stress hormones was the exact opposite!

What might be happening here?

i started a thread about this issue in 2018, still havent got to the bottom of it

Anyone Else Getting Increased Estrogen From T3/ASPIRIN/CYPRO/PROGESTERONE

 

[Spartan300]

I wish I could be sure about estrogen but gp in UK wouldn't test for it.

If increasing chest fat and poor libido are anything to go by then it could be high.

If dry skin and poor libido is anything to go by then it could be low.

Maybe this helps - I am generally overly emotional to acts of kindness

 

[Collden]

Try microdosing. 1 mcg per day or less.

 

[Spartan300]

@ddjd I remember seeing your thread now, not good news that you've not got to the bottom of it.

Seems like we're in the same boat as I've been using asprin and cyro at night too....

 

[Spartan300]

@Collden I only have idealabs products which makes micro dosing very difficult.

Would there really be a therapeutic effect at those doses?

I remember reading a quote from Ray peat talking about the effects of 10mcg T3 before bed so he doesn't necessarily seem to think doses should be that low.

I do however recognise that what works for one doesn't necessarily work for another.

 

[redsun]

@ddjd I remember seeing your thread now, not good news that you've not got to the bottom of it.

Seems like we're in the same boat as I've been using asprin and cyro at night too....

Cypro with T3? So you take a downer (cypro) which kills histamine and lowers dopamine at high enough doses and thus increases appetite and then you take T3 which is supposed to stimulate neurotransmitters like dopamine, noradrenaline, and histamine and also stimulate the metabolic rate and increase calories burned.

You are taking 2 things that are fighting/opposing each other, cypro is winning because you are gaining weight. You cant raise the metabolism because of cypro ******* with your neurotransmitters and "stress" hormones which need to go up when you take T3 but they can't.

T3 does not get you fat it easily can drop fat off the body, its probably other things you are taking causing issues preventing it from working properly like the cypro.

Also increased estrogen is normal from T3, T3 raises all hormones.

 

[Collden]

@Spartan300

Try diluting a drop in liquid and drinking just part of the volume.

Keep in mind the total production of T3 in your whole body is only about 1.5 mcg per hour, a substantial part of that will never see the circulation since its produced directly in the target tissues, the thyroid gland itself produces only about 0.25 mcg per hour. Now imagine that you take a 10 mcg pill, even if you take it with food and absorb it over several hours, it will still likely cause an unphysiological increase in circulating T3 levels that might be problematic, cause your body to inactivate it, shut down endogenous production or simply make you less responsive to T3.

Add to this that even if you are moderately hypothyroid you're still likely producing a lot of T3 yourself, and the optimal amount to take should be one that closes the gap between your deficient state and the optimal euthyroid T3 levels. If your T3 production is down to say 80% of normal, that means you have a deficit of about 0.3 mcg per hour. Taking a 10 mcg pill would then cause you to greatly overshoot the optimal balance.

I mean these are just some theoretical considerations, in practice its more complicated, some seem to tolerate and even do well with large doses of T3, but my impression is that even more do not have sustained good results with taking such high amounts of T3, and that may be because the doses commonly prescribed are not physiological, especially not if you are just mildly deficient.

You can look up Kenneth Blanchard who was an endocrinologist who found empirically that microdosing T3 produced the best results in his hypothyroid patients, although he did also combine with T4.

 

[Spartan300]

@redsun my understanding was that T3 lowers stress hormones not raise them?
There's a lot of information posted about people feeling low energy starting T3 due to the drop in stress hormones?

Re cypro, I only use it on occasion, maybe once or twice a week and never more than 0.5mg.

@Collden what you say makes a lot of sense and I asked a while back about diluting in liquid and only drinking some but was told that it wouldn't work that way and needed to be diluted in strong alcohol.

 

[redsun]

@redsun my understanding was that T3 lowers stress hormones not raise them?
There's a lot of information posted about people feeling low energy starting T3 due to the drop in stress hormones?

Re cypro, I only use it on occasion, maybe once or twice a week and never more than 0.5mg.

@Collden what you say makes a lot of sense and I asked a while back about diluting in liquid and only drinking some but was told that it wouldn't work that way and needed to be diluted in strong alcohol.

T3 shouldnt lower energy unless you have a severe metabolic problem making it hard for the body to get to energy. Not once have I had a drop in energy from T3, only a rise regardless of intake even the first time I took it.

So whoever is getting less energy from T3 I would sooner blame it on something else they are taking or they have bad deficiencies or something of this nature. It actually increases sensitivity to adrenaline making it work better, peat himself has said this. It "lowers" them by making them work better.

 

[Scenes]

Been applying Peat principals, diet and supplements for around 4 years and very little has made much difference.

Last bloodwork showed high androgens but I still experience poor sleep, libido, exercise tolerance and worsening body composition.

I'd held off because it seemed like a relatively drastic step but I finally decided to try supplemental thryroid.
T3 has improved mood and temps to degree but all other symptoms remain.

The biggest surprise is that I'm gaining belly fat quicker than I ever have.
My expectation based off reduced stress hormones was the exact opposite!

What might be happening here?

Purely anecdotal but I find t3 and aspirin to have similarly weird sides as you. My junk shrinks and tightens, my hair not as good, and I bloat in the midsection easily (don’t think it’s fat gain). They also don’t make me warm at all.

Topical preg and even more so topical progesterone (on forearm and on scrotum) both have the effect of warming my hands whenever I eat, feeling good, sleeping good and skin hair and libido are all great. Prog on scrotum for me feels almost androgenic, will keep a close eye on it, been 3 weeks.

 

[Spartan300]

@Scenes good to hear the preg/prog are working for you. I have tried both & I don't notice much other than reduced libido.

 

[Collden]

@Collden what you say makes a lot of sense and I asked a while back about diluting in liquid and only drinking some but was told that it wouldn't work that way and needed to be diluted in strong alcohol.

Yeah not sure about these products to be honest, but some people have reported diluting it in water and said it works fine. I think SFA esters and MCT should be soluble in fat too so maybe try diluting it in olive oil or molten butter? Otherwise, I think one drop of TyroMax contains roughly 1.3mcg of T3 so that is pretty close to the amounts I'm referring to here.

 

[Fexxx]

@Collden

Thanks for the microdosing tip!
Actually I only notice something from 10mcg on (slightly warm waves). But I will now test 1-2mcg.
For this I crush a 25mcg tablet and mix it with 125g gelatinepowder, so that per teaspoon 1-2mcg T3 should be contained.

 

[GreekDemiGod]

I only used the combo for a short while, but Cypro + T3 + T4 definitely was pro-weight gain

 

[Spartan300]

Can T3 get converted to rT3?

I thought that was what happened to excess T4 in the presence of adequate T3 but not T3.

 

[redsun]

Can T3 get converted to rT3?

I thought that was what happened to excess T4 in the presence of adequate T3 but not T3.

No it can't.

 

[mrchibbs]

Same situation here. Taking ~ 60mcg per day and haven’t lost a gram.
Also my Exercise performance suffers a lot. No more sport induced adrenaline/ cortisol highs .

Ray never recommended 60mcg of T3 a day...he said to approximate physiological amounts. Even the therapies (which I don't think are good) that speak of large doses of T3 only use it as a reset, never a long term thing.

At most Ray talked about nibbling on a 25mcg tablet of T3, or better, closer to 10mcg daily (i.e. nibbling on half a cynomel tablet). Or a product with 1-2mcg drops every hour.

The biggest surprise is that I'm gaining belly fat quicker than I ever have.
My expectation based off reduced stress hormones was the exact opposite!

What might be happening here?

I for one, have a fundamental disagreement with @redsun regarding cyproheptadine. It has helped me tremendously, but should be used intermittently. It helps to break out of a stress state, and many people experien If you're not responding well to thyroid treatment, and you've broken from a previous stressed state, you're going to be at a much lower metabolic rate, which explains the accumulation of fat.

T3 doesn't help if there is lack of T4 to act as a reservoir through the night. That typically means it's time to be using NDT thyroid or a T3/T4 combo.

T3/T4 combos are most complicated to introduce, because they don't act like NDT thyroid, and if you take too much of it at anytime, it can wreck havoc on your liver, create a backlog of T4 and cause your temps to drop altogether. In this context, any excess of T3 (i.e. above a physiological amount of around 3-4mcg an hour), will cause the T4 present to be converted to rT3. So it's not T3 itself which gets converted to rT3, it's the T4 which isn't getting turned into T3 because usually something is lacking in the diet, or too much exogenous T4 was supplemented.

Guys, I don't mean to sound condescending, because I've been there too, but be careful with thyroid therapy. It's doesn't work magically, it takes time, and it especially doesn't work if it's not done right. Start slow, and be meticulous. Even with a therapy done right, with slowly increasing amounts of thyroid, we're talking 2 months before reaching appreciable benefits. When taking a T3/T4 combo, it's crucial to start as low as 0.25-0.5 grains (about an eighth of a cynoplus tablet), and only increase slowly, every 2 weeks, if the basal temperature is not trending up.

For severely hypothyroid people (like I was) and many others on this forum, any exogenous T4 is tricky, and needs to be introduced very slowly, with food.

I wholeheartedly recommend these two resources:

Thyroid: Therapies, Confusion, and Fraud

Ray Peat, PhD on Thyroid, Temperature, Pulse, and TSH

Broda Barnes's Hypothyroidism: The Unsuspected Illness